RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)

  • France: Fourth-century coin and mysterious inscriptions found under Notre Dame cathedral

    Source: CBS News

    “Wilting in the summer sun, a line of tourists waits to climb Notre Dame cathedral and meet its gargoyles. Four meters (13 feet) beneath them, a team of archaeologists is digging the other way – straight down and back in time, to Roman Paris 2,000 years ago. … a slice of Notre Dame’s forecourt has become an excavation site – an open pit ringed by barriers and crossed by a wooden walkway, a few steps from the line-up. … Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.” (06/02/26)

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/notre-dame-cathedral-dig-of-the-century-treasures-found/


  • We predict a black market arriving in 3 … 2…1…

    Source: Adam Smith Institute
    by Tim Worstall

    “Some say that economics is not a predictive science. We say ‘Pish’ to that idea, even ‘Pfft,’ and here is a prediction from economics: ‘The Conservatives are planning to introduce ‘ration cards’ to prevent thousands of criminals from spending their benefits on alcohol and gambling. The party wants to reduce Britain’s ballooning welfare bill by issuing criminal claimants with cards that severely limit what their money can be spent on.’ It will take some sub-triple digit number of hours for a black market to appear and given modern social media some sub-double digit number of weeks for it to be a commonplace across the country. There will be a trade of this restricted money for the unlimited ration coupons known as cash money. Further, we’d predict that the unlimited form will be worth more than the limited.” (06/02/26)

    https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/we-predict-a-black-market-arriving-in-321

  • Florida Property Tax Debate: The Right Answer is Always “Cut Government Spending”

    Source: Garrison Center
    by Thomas L Knapp

    “Florida home values have increased by about 150% since 2008, and that there now about 2 million more homes in Florida than there were in 2008. In other words, a lot more homeowners are paying a lot more in property taxes than used to be the case. In the meantime, average wages have only increased by about 35%, while inflation has driven up the prices of things Floridians buy by 75%. Which means those increased tax bills have become less affordable, even as county government budgets have continued to grow at or faster than the inflation rate. The state government has run budget surpluses since 2010. It seems to me that SOME kind of correction is in order. Government keeps taking, and spending, more of our money, but our earnings aren’t keeping up with either that government growth or the cost of living.” (06/02/26)

    https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20639

  • If Congress Wants a Raise, It Should Do Its Job

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Romina Boccia

    “A Congress that routinely misses budget deadlines and adds to an unsustainable debt burden should not expect automatic raises with no accountability.” (06/02/26)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/if-congress-wants-a-raise-it-should-do-its-job/

  • Interstate trade wars are a new front line in red vs. blue

    Source: Washington Post
    by Ramesh Ponnuru

    “Some conflicts among the states are inevitable and perhaps even healthy in our system. But rules must restrain those conflicts so that they do not undermine important national goods such as freedom of commerce among the states. … The Constitution therefore includes several restrictions on what states can do to one another and a commerce clause that hands regulatory power to Congress. For almost all of America’s history, the Supreme Court has inferred from that clause that state governments can’t regulate interstate economic activity … But the justices have, unfortunately, grown less and less willing to enforce those limits on the states.” (06/02/26)

    https://archive.is/PF9SU

  • Statesmanship and the Classical Liberal Order

    Source: Independent Institute
    by Alexander William Salter

    “There is a tension at the heart of political economy. Is it the science of statesmanship, by which rulers manage taxation, commerce, public finance, and national prosperity? Or is it the science of self-government, meaning the study of how free people coordinate their affairs without constant management from above? These conceptions appear to conflict. Statesmanship implies centralized judgment. Self-government implies decentralized judgment. One vision emphasizes what governments do for societies, while the other emphasizes what societies can do for themselves.” (06/02/26)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2026/06/02/statesmanship-and-the-classical-liberal-order/

  • The Iran war sparks partnership in Asia

    Source: Christian Science Monitor
    by staff

    “More than any other region, Asia has felt the knock-on effects of the Iran war in energy supplies. Before the conflict began in February, some 80% of the oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asian buyers. In recent weeks, as those supplies have dwindled, the region has endured blackouts, fuel rationing, and dozens of protests, from South Korea to the Philippines to India. The expectation was that each country would turn inward to protect petroleum supplies. Not so. With a population of more than half of humanity, Asia has shown a great deal of humanity in tackling the crisis together. ‘Now that they are hostage to events thousands of miles away,’ reported The Economist, ‘the squabbles that frequently break out between Asian neighbours no longer look quite such a threat.'” (06/01/26)

    https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0601/The-Iran-war-sparks-partnership-in-Asia

  • Pay attention, Congress: A better model for remote work is here

    Source: The Hill
    by Gleb Tsipursky

    “On a weekday morning in downtown Washington, federal buildings and corporate offices still feel half-full, even as return-to-office emails pile up. At the same time, across the Atlantic, the House of Lords has treated remote work not as a culture-war skirmish but as a subject for a full inquiry on home-based working, backed by extensive evidence and formal hearings. Its Home-based Working Committee spent 10 months asking two simple questions with big consequences: First, is working from home working? And second, if so, how should governments and employers respond? The answer, detailed by researcher Jane Parry in a synthesis of five years of evidence on hybrid work, is clear enough for policymakers. Hybrid work shows only modest average effects on productivity, but it delivers meaningful gains in labor supply, employment rates, recruitment, retention and office efficiency when it is managed deliberately.” (06/02/26)

    https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/labor/5904519-hybrid-work-economic-infrastructure/